Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART ONE CHAPTER 17
A smart guard jumped out, giving a whistle, and after him one by one the impatient
passengers began to get down: an officer of the guards, holding himself erect,
and looking severely about him; a nimble little merchant with a satchel, smiling
gaily; a peasant with a sack over his shoulder.
Vronsky, standing beside Oblonsky, watched the carriages and the passengers, totally
oblivious of his mother. What he had just heard about Kitty excited and delighted
him. Unconsciously he arched his chest, and his eyes flashed. He felt himself
a conqueror.
“Countess Vronskaya is in that compartment,” said the smart guard, going up to
Vronsky.
The guard’s words roused him, and forced him to think of his mother and his
approaching meeting with her. He did not in his heart respect his mother, and without
acknowledging it to himself, he did not love her, though in accordance with the
ideas of the set in which he lived, and with his own education, he could not have
conceived of any behavior to his mother not in the highest degree respectful and
obedient, and the more externally obedient and respectful his behavior, the less in
his heart he respected and loved her.
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